Quayola

Born and raised in Rome, Quayola has been drawn to technology since childhood. In the late 1990s, Quayola began to experiment with computer graphics that had recently become globally accessible, before moving to London in the early 2000s to study a BA in Digital Media at the University of the Arts London. It was here in London that Quayola became immersed in the electronic music scene and realized the full potential of technology as a medium that could combine image and sound. Quayola’s interest in the creative possibilities of audiovisual experiences can be seen in works such as Transient; a synaesthetic concert where motorized pianos driven by an algorithm generate kaleidoscopic patterns and colors.Transient has been performed at Node Festival, Modena; Sonar Festival, Barcelona and Sundance Film Festival, Utah. Quayola continues to collaborate with musicians including London Contemporary Orchestra, National Orchestra of Bordeaux, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Vanessa Wagner, Jamie XX, Mira Calix and Plaid.

While working across sculpture, performance painting and installation a common denominator in Quayola’s work is a drive to engage with and re-imagine canonical imagery through contemporary technology. As a result of this interdisciplinary practice Quayola does not treat technology simply as subject matter or medium, but as a lens to explore the tensions and equilibriums between seemingly opposing forces: the real and artificial, figurative and abstract, old and new. Works such as Jardins d’ Été, Pointillisme and Remains use high-precision laser scanners and other technologies to capture nature through the ‘eye’ of the machine. Series such as Unfinished Sculptures and Sculpture Factory, employ algorithmic strategies to manipulate and sculpt physical matter, referencing Michelangelo’s technique of the “non-finito” or unfinished work. Other series like Strata and Iconographies use computer-vision systems to analyze and ultimately re-imagine canonical imagery and classical iconographic themes. 

Quayola’s simultaneous embrace of both tradition and innovation underpins his inaugural NFT PP_F_018_1 (2021); a computational painting where algorithms re-visualize the Provence countryside famously painted by Van Gogh. Quayola challenges the belief that culture is a neat, linear progression and his work instead creates a new visual language where the past and future are intertwined. 

Through these transhistorical dialogues, Quayola challenges the conventional wisdom that the past and future are opposites, instead revealing how each can still transform our understanding of the other.